Mama hen keeping her babies safe, even from me, by running into the the open, but short pen. On the other side of the pen are the “teenage” chicks that were trying to eat but when mama came – they ran! They know who the boss is.

The hope is that some of the plants will grow into the chicken area, but not be decimated by the voracious chickens.

Via various online sources and trial and error we have learned about broody “mama” hens and hatching eggs. Unfortunately, we lost several babies while still in the egg but we were able to help 2 babies hatch. That makes a total of 3 baby chicks born on the farm! 1 little one appeared to have a bigger body and feathers like a rooster, but time will tell.

For now Mama Hen has been busy taking care of her babies too. She lets them climb over and under her anytime they are cold, scared or wanting to play. She shows them where the food and water is and even how to dig for food that has spilled out of the feeder. She does a great job keeping her babies safe from the other chicks that are 1-2 months older too.

He/She arrived on 4/25/17. You can still see her little egg tooth on her beak as she is barely a day old in this photo, just learning to walk and eat. She is a mix between a Cuckoo Maran Rooster and a Buff Orpington hen. It is hard to work or do school with a cutie like this just outside! But her “mama” that hatched her is very protective and makes sure she is safe from us and the other little chickens that are about 2 months old.

Baby and the broody “mama” hen that hatched her are picture below. The broody hen is a 1 yr old Speckled Sussex and this is her first hatchling. We are waiting on the other 4 eggs that are under her to see if they hatch.

Here’s proud “papa” checking on his baby (and trying to figure out what I am doing!). The golden hen is a Buff Orpington, but since we have 4 we don’t know who the biological mother is.

The “egg eater” laid an egg and she didn’t eat it?! (it was a bit dirty but I didn’t give her a box, just a big crate and a roost)

Did we accuse the wrong hen? Does she only eat the other eggs? Does she only eat them occasionally? So many questions…

~Life on a farm is never without surprises! 🙂

For now, she will stay in her grassy patch away from the other eggs. If we still have problems then I will suspect another hen eats them too. I sure hope it was only her though. And we have a plan to offer her, with full disclosure, to a neighbor. The neighbor has younger chicks and she thinks she has 5 roosters! This would give her at least 1 laying hen. If she starts eating her eggs, or others later on, we could give her a lesson on animal husbandry, if desired. No matter what shakes out, she will not be dinner tonight.

UPDATE – The family loves their new hen! (and she has even laid a few eggs for them 🙂 )

Yesterday we got 3 eggs. Just 3 from 16 hens! The last 2 weeks we have been getting less and less. A few factors to consider – weather, reintroducing the rooster, a broody chicken (we may have more babies soon!), and I suspected we had an egg eater! Out of the three eggs we did get, 1 was pecked and all were splattered with egg goo. I also found some eggshell pieces. I was on a mission to figure out what was happening.

Today we spent much of the day protecting the broody chicken eggs, making the last 2 curtains for the nesting boxes, watching the 4-5 week old chicks that are fenced off in a separate part of the yard, and running outside to collect eggs anytime a hen made the “egg song” noise. There were many false alarms because hens have favorite boxes and they aren’t always patience waiting for their box. So they, in their own way, sing (yell) their egg song at the hen in the box in an attempt to hurrying things along. They also sing this same song, after they lay.

On one visit out to check for eggs, we noticed the broody hen was out of her box. She spent a longer time than normal stretching her legs, getting a dust bath, eating fresh greens, and getting water while we faithfully protected her nest. We wanted to make sure the eggs weren’t crushed or eaten, or that she didn’t refuse to get back in her nesting box. In the process of protecting the nest, we noticed one hen that was was stalking her nest and others. She relentless, which was a bit odd. Since we had so many hens to keep out of the box, we decided to take a chance and put her in with the babies. She didn’t attack them but was clearly on edge and just wanted back out. She attempted flying out, so we pinned her into the babies’ house, which meant the babies were stuck out in their yard (which is still a bit scary to them and not 100% protected from hawks). I didn’t like throwing them out in the yard, but while she was locked up, 5 hens laid without us hearing them. Four eggs were laid in the favorite box and guess what? Not one was broken! No eggs shells or goo left behind.That was great news for the eggs, but not for the suspect.

At this point I knew I already knew the hen that was locked up was either a poor layer or has never laid. Her pubic bones are not as far apart as the other birds, which indicates she either hasn’t laid or doesn’t lay often. I am a sucker for giving birds a chance, but the fact she may also be an egg eater wasn’t good. So, we took one pecked, but not leaking, egg from yesterday and placed it pecked side down in the babies’ nesting box, with the suspect. I put the hen up near the nesting box so that she could see the egg and she immediately ran and pecked the egg until it broke and she began eating it.

Now I don’t know why she never matured to lay eggs, nor do I know why she started eating them, but from what I have read, you can’t really break them from that habit. She has lived a better and longer life than most chickens with room to run and even fly. She had bugs, grass, and treats to eat. I figured out when she will go but it will be as peaceful as possible, with a prayer said on her behalf. (Doing the deed is never easy emotionally, spiritually or physically). In the meantime she is getting to eat all the grass she wants, without having to fight another hen for it.

On a positive note – we got 12 eggs today including my favorite – a pretty blue one!! Hopefully we will be getting more clean, unbroken eggs to share with others.

Our love of poultry (and FRESH eggs!) got started by accident. It started with a love of gardening and totes of chicken manure.

Most of us eat chicken but few understand how chickens are raised. In the commercial chicken world, once the chickens are hauled off to be processed, the huge chicken coop has to be cleaned of all the chicken waste (shavings, poo, etc.) and the rejected chickens.

We took a few loads of manure to our garden but my heart broke knowing runts were left behind (to die). So we put some in our totes and took them to their new home. The hens at 2 months old were still bigger than our full size heritage breeds. Many people assume it is due to GMO feed or steroids but it is just due to breeding. They were bred to be bigger, faster. The meat is more tender and juicy but it also cheaper this way.

These “rescued” runts got us curious about “real”chickens. So we started buying various chickens trying to find which breeds we liked best for size, personality, egg laying frequency, coloring (of bird and egg), ability to forage, temperament, etc.

In our quest to find, and even breed, our favorites, we have had more eggs (and chickens) than we knew what to do with at times – all because you Must buy more chickens than you want to have in the end. You never know how many will be roosters (even if they promise hens). Nor do you know how many just won’t make it, for whatever reason. You also never know when a hen will start laying. It can be as early as 4 months, but some can take 10 months. Hens won’t lay well if it is too hot, if they get startled, if it is winter (due to lack of sunshine), etc. Hens stop laying and go broody too. Even when they do lay you never know if they will lay small eggs forever, or if they will get bigger as the bird ages. Getting eggs isn’t as simple as it seems.

Ultimately, I don’t know that we could ever go back to store bought eggs again, therefore we will continue raising our chickens and sharing the excess as long as we can.

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Our Hens

Our hens are spoiled!

This last year they got all sorts of fresh figs, blueberries, blackberries, veggies, herbs, grasses, and more, as well as balanced feed we provided. They also got to chose sleeping inside their roost or on a tree like in nature.

Our Easter Eggers lay mostly blue and green eggs though we have 1 that lays a lighter colored brownish egg. The darker brown eggs come from our Cuckoo Marans and Welsummers. The other shades of brown are laid by either our Speckled Sussex's or Silver Laced Wyandotte's.